At LIMRA 2025, experts urge insurers to accelerate AI transformation

ORLANDO – The length of "addressable tasks" that artificial intelligence can complete has doubled every seven months for the past six years.

AI is changing the way we work, and insurance and financial services are among the industries leading the way. But it's not enough to simply incorporate AI, said Luke Purcell, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group. Companies will have to evolve how work gets done in order to fully maximize the power of AI.

Purcell joined colleagues on an opening session Sunday at the LIMRA 2025 Annual Conference. Titled "The Intelligent Enterprise: Driving Value Through AI and Data," the session included dense slides packed with detailed information on how companies can scale up AI use in the coming years.

For all the experimentation in financial services, companies need to push further and fast, said David Cockerill, managing director and partner, Boston Consulting Group.

"Fifty percent of surveyed employees do not have a definitive view of how their organization wishes for them to approach AI," he said. "Thirty percent of them do not have any AI paper within the organization. So what they are losing is the opportunity to drive experimentation, to get AI fluency and start thinking about how that will impact or change their individual processes."

BCG surveys reveal an interesting disconnect on the part of insurance companies and distributors when it comes to technology and generative AI. On the one hand, insurers lag behind traditional industries such as healthcare and travel in digital adoption. But when it comes to early Gen AI adoption, insurance companies trail only the Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) sector, BCG found.

However, only 7% say they are achieving success at scale with Gen AI.

BCG's most recent survey, from June, found that optimism around Gen AI continues to grow, with 83% of chief marketing officers expressing confidence in 2025, compared to 74% in 2023. Likewise, concerns regarding its use have dropped substantially.

Three-step process

Companies should employ a simple three-step process to "enhance and reshape functions today, and transform tomorrow," Purcell noted:

Deploy. Companies can leverage Gen AI immediately to make human processes more efficient and improve relationships with customers, distribution partners and employee satisfaction.

A Gen AI sales assistant can do so many things for an agent or advisor, the panel noted, from planning and scheduling to ongoing client engagement to lead generation. The panel projected a 25% reduction in wholesaler time spent on "non-direct sales activity."

"Time savings can be repurposed to allow for hundreds of additional client touchpoints per territory, representing billions in annual AUM inflows," a session slide concluded.

Reshape. In this phase, Gen AI becomes more ingrained in the insurer's business functions and redefines the roles humans play in the company. An example of a task ceded to Gen AI might be generating first drafts of customized contracts for underwriters to review, Purcell said.

Transform. At this point, insurers can harness the power of Gen AI to "build new insurance propositions," as one of Purcell's PowerPoint slides phrased it. His example here is offering retail customers "hyper-personalized insurance products through a chatbot."

Getting started

All that remains is for insurers to get started, or ramp up, their Gen AI journey. The panel left a blueprint for doing just that:

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